Twelve bullets
by stilljustme
Summary: When Pietro died, everyone lost. The avengers try to honor the dead by protecting and slowly healing his sister, which is not so easy when you're broken yourself.
1. Family

Twelve bullets.  
One for every year she had spent waiting for her revenge on Tony Stark.  
One for every minute Pietro was older than her.  
One for every heartbeat when she fell down and cried, echoing her brother's pain as Ultron's soldiers riddled his body.  
She hadn't seen it coming. The future was a dizzy thing, turning and changing every moment, but it had seemed clear to Wanda that Pietro's chance of survival grew with the distance he brought between himself and Ultron.  
That was why she had sent him away. That was why he had protested against it.  
But she had always been the more stubborn of them, the angrier one. Where Pietro was a protector, Wanda was a warrior. Where he was just a boy at heart – partly innocent and partly simply ignorant – she was an avenger.

Twelve years she had been waiting to avenge her parents, only to realize that by taking revenge for the innocent people of Sokovia, she might kill thousands of innocent people around the world.

Twelve bullets caused twelve wounds. Twelve wounds caused one death. It was simple, really. Easy.

The only difficulty, now, was breathing. Her lungs worked perfectly, she had gone through the battle almost unscathed, and the air around her was clear, not damp and foul-smelling as it had been in Hydra's fortress.  
Still. It hurt.

It hurt to breathe because it reminded her that Pietro did no longer breathe. That he did no longer see, or eat – god, the tons of food he had been able to stuff down – or run. Pietro loved running. Mostly running toward something, though, that was the problem. If he had just learnt to run away, and hide, and bury himself in bitterness and fear as she had. Of course, Wanda had always known that her brother was a better person, his soul more intact than hers.  
But now she was alive, and he wasn't. So what was the point in being good?

"Why did he do that?" Her voice was loud and harsh in her ears but she didn't care. Pietro was gone, and he had taken everything with him; every sympathy, every kindness, every will to live and fight. She had had her revenge but it hadn't changed a thing.  
Wordlessly, Clint sat down next to her. There was no use trying to find an answer, they both knew it. They both had been haunted by that question for the past weeks.

"He would have done it for me", Wanda's voice was flat as she was stating a simple fact. Swallowing, Clint nodded. Wanda was Pietro's whole family, as he had been hers. Of course he would have died to protect his sister, as Clint would happily die to protect Laura and the kids.  
"But why did he do it for you?"

It took him a moment to realize it was not an accusation but a question. Clint looked up at the young woman, trying to hold her glance. Her eyes were dark, almost empty, filled with pain and only a spark of the fire he had seen in the hut in Sokovia.  
"I don't know." The corners of his mouth twitched with a humorless grin. "He was a hero."  
Wanda straightened up. "He didn't need to die to become a hero."  
Clint closed his eyes. "I know."  
"What were you to him?" With clenched fists, Wanda fought back tears. No weeping. She had promised Pietro, and had made him promise the same seven years ago. No weeping.  
What a stupid idea.

"You said I could be an avenger. You made me go back and fight. You made me believe I could be better."  
Clint frowned. "You think that was wrong?"  
"I think", suddenly Wanda's voice was down to a whisper, "that he saved you for me." Now it was her fighting to hold his glance. "I think… no. I know it. I know it was my fault."  
Saying it out loud broke the dam, and the promise. Wanda sank down sobbing, tears streaming down her face. It hurt. It would never stop hurting. "It was my fault!"  
"No, it wasn't!" Clint shook his head though she couldn't see it. Then he reached out and pulled her close, holding her as tight as he'd held the little boy in Sokovia. The little boy who lived because Pietro didn't.  
"It was not your fault." He didn't think she believed him, but that was secondary right now. He just held her, stroked her hair and let her cry, just like he'd done with Cooper when his guinea pig had died. Of course, it was not exactly the same. But then, it was.  
The world stopping and then going on, with a vital part of it missing but everyone else going on as if nothing had happened.

"I know you don't want to hear that right now, but I meant what I said." Eventually he pulled away a bit, not pushing the crying girl out of the embrace but forcing her to look at him.  
Wanda bit her lips. "I can't."  
"It's not a question of can or cannot. You _are_ an avenger. Already."  
"I cannot fight with you."  
"Why not? You once did."  
"And it killed the only thing in my life that was good." Wanda pulled back. The moment of weakness was over. She had cried but it made no difference. Noting did. Nothing counted.

"That is not true, and you know it. There are more things that are good. And a lot of things that are bad. I need you to help me fight them."  
"For SHIELD? To save the world from other powerful companies?" She grinned contemptuously. "Like I did for Hydra, I guess. Thank you. But no."

Finally Clint found the fire in her eyes again, but it was dark. Too dark to get through it with things as clear and cold as reason. He should have known he was not the right one to talk to Wanda. Her brother had died saving him, for crying out loud! Other than the feeling of guilt, they shared nothing, and guilt was a bad fundament.  
He sighed. "Then what will you do?"  
Wanda closed her eyes as new tears filled her eyes. How much could one person cry? She had promised not to. "That is no business of yours." Her nails dug in her fingernails, but this time she didn't give in. She would never cry again.


	2. Comrade

**I hope you enjoy it. Reviews are always welcome :)**

After half an hour of silence, Clint stood up. He was not sure how long Wanda would have held up her silence, and he didn't want to hurt her by forcing her to break down again. Besides, he could not help her finding the answer to the last question.  
All he could do was fight for her to make the decision herself, without Fury pushing her. And as he saw Steve and Tony approaching Clint swore to himself he would win that fight.

Steve read Wanda's reaction from the look on Clint's face. "She won't be a part of SHIELD."  
"She doesn't see a reason for it."  
"Because there's nowhere else for her to go", Tony prompted, and shrugged at Steve's glare. "I don't like it either, but that doesn't say it's not true." He looked past Clint towards the small silhouette at the wall. "And I guess she knows it as well."  
"What, that she has nothing left to fight for? Yes." Clint rubbed his face. He was tired, and not only because of Wanda. There was a broken washing machine, three broken cars (one of them a toy, actually) and a broken roof tile waiting for him.  
And a baby. Automatically, Clint smiled at the thought of his little son, of Laura holding him, of Cooper and Lila adoring him.

Steve looked at him, then nodded. "She needs something to fight for."  
Clint sighed, pulling back from his thoughts. "There is no one else."  
"Well, she's still got us." This time, both men glared at Tony, and once again, he shrugged it off. "Come on, since when am I the sensitive guy? She lost her family. Let's give her a new one."  
Clint frowned. "Here? At SHIELD? You really have a nice concept of family, Stark. This is a training area. Even we barely work as a team, there is no way we could ever become a family!"  
"Now you hurt my feelings." The millionaire pouted, then became serious again – quicker than usual. "You may be right and I have no idea of what a family should be, but I know that telling her to fight will help neither us nor Wanda. If we want her, we must give her a place. Safety. Acceptance. Maybe even happiness, you know."  
Steve grimaced in wonder. "What the hell did you put in your last drink?"  
"Language", Clint muttered out of reflex.  
Tony didn't seem to have heard. "I won't apologize for my intentions" he said, quietly but distinctively. "I never wanted to control the world more than I felt necessary to protect it. I just want the people I love to be safe. Pietro did, too, and he died for it. Because… of me." He shook his head, his eyes cast to the floor in something neither Steve nor Clint had ever seen on Tony Stark: shame. Guilt.

"Maybe you should talk to her", Steve suggested, something he would not have said even in a joke two hours before.  
Clint found himself nodding. "Do that." It was strange enough to say that without irony, but even crazier was the fact that Tony nodded as well. "Alright. I'll try. But maybe you should stay close."

"He's changed a lot, don't you think? Stark, I mean." Steve shook his head in wonder as the avenger stood next to Wanda. "He has really changed."  
"Threatening the world and yourself with your own weapon might do that" Clint offered. Then he closed his eyes. "Maybe seeing the kid die for his sister made him realize how lonely he is."  
"Kid?" Steve smiled shortly. "Wait, Barton, tell me you don't feel responsible for that? It was his own decision! He did what…"  
"I know." Clint held up his hands in surrender. "I know he did. And I'm trying really hard not to ask myself why he did it. But anyway… he took twelve bullets for me. Twelve fucking bullets for…"  
"For a comrade" Steve said with a conviction that had lasted through seventy years of ice. "For a man who would have done the same for him."  
Would he? Clint closed his eyes. This was the worst of all unanswerable questions, the one that wouldn't leave him even in his children's embrace.  
Would he have died for Pietro, as he had done for him?


	3. Heroes

When Tony stepped next to her, Wanda straightened up, a look of contempt and desperation on her face. The expression reminded Tony of how he had felt when he'd tried to defend Ultron against the other avengers.  
"What do you want, Stark?"  
"Are you acting out your accent or can't you sound normal?" Tony shrugged at the bewilderment in her eyes. "Just asking." Pepper had berated him about his smalltalk techniques, but old habits die hard. He couldn't work with people who took everything serious. Barton was bad enough with his ever-so- solemn-face, but Rogers… great god, he had wished more than once they'd left him in the ice.  
Cap was right, what did he know about family?  
"I'm sorry for what happened to your brother." At least this he could say with sincerity.  
"And my home? My friends? My parents? Are you sorry for them as well?" The young woman grinned bitterly. "What do you really want, Mr. Stark? Have you come to end it?"  
"End?"  
"What you started ten years ago. What we waited for while we were cowering under the bed, afraid of every breath because it might set off the bomb. Are you here to kill me like we came to kill you?" Her voice was thick with tears. Tony frowned. Her words were too pathetic to be honest but there was something in her face that made him uncomfortable. Hope. She was a fighter, she would not allow herself to die from grief – but a part of her wanted to. A part of her was too tired and too lonely to even attempt to move on.  
Probably.  
Or probably he was just interpreting his own feelings into the girl. He never had been as superficial as he'd let on, but for most of his life, his highest priority had been he himself. Then he had learnt that there were people he would die for, people whose death would be worse than if he died himself – at least, the prospect was.  
And lately, Wanda Maximoff had shown him that there was something even worse than losing the people he loved more than himself: surviving the loss. Staying alive, the last witness of mankind.  
Tony shook the memory off, ignoring the lingering cold in his neck. Under different circumstances, there was _a lot_ he'd like to tell that witch. Not exactly nice things. But these were no different circumstances, and as much as he wished he could blame someone – anyone – else, he knew he couldn't. This was his fault, and his alone.  
He had avenged himself and his mind with the battle of Sokovia, when he had helped defeating Ultron, but was that enough to still call himself an avenger?  
"If you still wanted to kill me you'd already done it" he said, belatedly. "I think we're both over that."  
That got her attention, she turned her head. "You wanted to kill me?"  
"I was considering it." Not really, but she didn't need to know that.  
"Do me a favor, Stark. Try." With demonstrative calmness, Wanda's glance moved away from him and beyond the horizon, back to a time where this moment would have been her greatest triumph. Tony Stark alone, within her reach. He was right. She could have killed him by now.  
But it would not change a thing. Why hadn't she realized that earlier? Nothing could bring back the dead. Not letting HYDRA work on them. Not cooperating with Ultron. Not killing their murderer.  
Involuntarily, Wanda backed away as the tears threatened to return, only minutes after she'd given in to them. It wouldn't do.  
As much as she wished she could blame Tony Stark, she knew she couldn't. Not for Pietro's death.

"The last time I tried something on my own we almost lost everything." Tony didn't seem to have noticed the sudden distance, his voice was so low Wanda barely understood. "I only wanted to save them from the future you showed me. I saw the worst thing that could happen, and to prevent that I was ready to do everything. The thing is…. I still can't blame myself for that."  
"You created a monster!" But her voice no longer were poisonous. What would she have done to prevent Pietro's death?  
Everything.  
"Because heroes usually die! That's what makes them heroes, but it doesn't always get the job done." Tony shook his head. "Heroes fall. Or they get corrupted. Either way, they…"  
"What about the avengers? Aren't they supposed to be heroes?" Wanda looked at the two men standing in the distance. She knew Barton had a wife, and children; she had seen the picture of his newborn son. His middle name was "Pietro", obviously that should have consoled her. To see that what remained of her brother was a name fit for a baby. Almost as pathetic an idea as thinking that killing Stark would bring back their parents.  
Her thoughts were running in circles, again and again.


	4. Questions

"I'm not sure what Fury wanted us to be." Tony's glance followed hers into the vast emptiness of the sky. "I mean, Cap… yeah, why not. He's a fairy tale prince, I get that. But the rest of us?" He shrugged. "Barton screwed up pretty bad the first time we were assembled, and Banner… well, Banner always screws up, sometimes because we want him to, sometimes… not. Thor's a half-god, I'm pretty sure that's cheating. Romanoff… no. We're not heroes. We're avengers."  
"And whom are you avenging?"

When Tony turned around five minutes later, he still had no answer. Wanda probably was satisfied with that – with his admittance not to know – but that didn't make the question less probing. Whom were they avenging? The world, he had told Loki in a moment of desperation. Might have been his most heroic and most stupid statement ever.  
As most heroic statements had something stupid in them, something deadlocked, as if there weren't thousand ways for a situation to pan out.  
Loki had only grinned, that smug arrogant smile that showed exactly how much he despised him. Not only the human race – that, too – but especially _him_. Tony Stark, billionaire, philanthropist, new born super hero. Kind of.  
It meant nothing to the god.

"What did she say?" The captain nodded towards the girl who was wandering off in the opposite direction.  
Tony swallowed. Rogers might be the only one who had never asked himself why he was doing what he was doing, the only one at peace with himself.  
Would he be like that, too, if he only let himself be enclosed by ice for seventy years? Sounded like a fair deal.  
 _Whom are you avenging?_

"Stark?"  
"I… she…" He looked down. There was no way he'd open up about his doubts to Captain America and Hawkeye. No way. He liked them better than Thor (who sometimes shared Loki's arrogant grin), and sometimes Banner (too scared of everything, and most of himself), but… he didn't trust them. Not when it came down to saving the world.  
 _Saving_ , dammit. Not avenging, because when the earth was destroyed he'd die with it.  
"She wants to know what we're doing", he said after another too-long-moment of silence. "Whom we're avenging, as avengers, precisely." He shook his head as if wondering about that crazy idea. "I think she's just desperately trying to distract herself from the fact that she has no other choice but to join us…"  
"She has!" Barton stepped closer, anger in his eyes. "She has a choice, she can still go back and try to live a normal life. It is possible, you know? I live it."  
"Do you?" Tony shrugged. One of the reasons he felt comfortable around Barton was that the man had lost every power to make him feel _uncomfortable_. "Because as far as I know, your son was born three weeks ago, and you're already back here. Your home is a ruin because you try to rebuild it every once in a while, but you never finish anything before you start the next. At least… judging from the way my room looked like. And the sunroom. And…"  
"That's enough, Stark! Clint came here to help." Trust Steven Rogers to stifle every nice fight before it really began. Tony shrugged. Unfortunately, Barton didn't seem upset by his words either. What had happened to them? Did almost seeing the world destroyed change so much in a person?  
Or was it the experience of being saved by a manipulated, angry boy who in his last hours on earth had proved as much a hero as any of them?  
And then he had left his sister alone, to deal with the world they'd saved.  
"She has no choice", he said again, calmer this time. "She can't simply go back to Sokovia, there is nothing left for her. Her parents died there, her brother. She was imprisoned by HYDRA, she's got no friends. She only had her brother."  
"Who died to save me." Now it was Clint's turn to look down. "Why did he do that? Why?"  
"Why do people do what they do?" Tony sighed. "Why are we here? Why do we call ourselves avengers, whom do we avenge, is the world worth saving? You're asking too many questions, Clint."  
"As do you", Steve murmured, still looking at Wanda. "She knows what she's going to do. I agree with you, Clint, she has options. But I can't imagine she'll go back."  
"Me neither. But she's deserved the time to find that answer in herself."  
The captain shook his head. "She won't. She's still too angry at Stark for trading with the bombs that killed her family, and with SHIELD and us and herself for killing her brother. Deciding would mean she's forgiven herself enough to move on." His face darkened with memories, and for a moment the seventy years were all too visible in his eyes. "She needs us to order her to find a place in this world. Despite everything she did. Or couldn't do."  
Tony and Barton stared at each other.  
"Why would she feel guilty? She couldn't have known about that child…"  
"She decided to help Ultron in the first place" Steve interrupted, his expression still raw, "she made Pietro fight, no matter which side we're talking about. Maybe she could have stopped him. Chances are low, and we'll never know but… maybe. If she had chosen differently… maybe they'd still be together." He looked down, then took a deep breath. "I guess it's my turn to talk to her now."


	5. Avengers

**A huge thank you to all who've read this story.** **I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. Italics signify flashbacks.**

" _Let go", Pietro whispered in her ear when she tried on the red leather jacket, wondering what the hell she was doing – if anybody could be fooled by her disguise as part of the team. She was not. Not an avenger, not a hero, not someone good.  
"None of this would have happened if it wasn't for…"  
"You're sure about that?" He interrupted her before she could place the blame and gently took her face in his hands. "I fight next to Tony Stark now but that doesn't mean I trust him. You wouldn't have seen anything if it wasn't so clear in his mind. Ultron is not our doing. He is Stark's vision."  
"You can't blame Stark for all of it." It was only when she said the words that she realized their truth.  
Pietro shrugged. "I can do whatever I want. Right now, I want to save the world and kick some robot's ass. And maybe that little bowman's, too."  
Wanda rolled her eyes but couldn't keep from smiling, and Pietro nodded, satisfied. "It's going to be alright." He started towards the living room but stopped at the door, suddenly tense. "Just promise me you'll be careful."  
Wanda moved her fingers over the jacket. It was pretty, and comfortable. And Pietro had found it for her, not Stark – a weak compromise, but maybe that was all she could hope for at the moment.  
She had never been part of a team. When the bombs had come and killed her parents, they'd also erased her memories of the life she'd had. For as long as she could remember, it had only been Pietro and her. He was all she had, and all she needed – she had learnt not to let her heart reach out to people. They only died, and her heart broke. She could not survive this again. Pietro had to live, and she would fight next to Tony Stark for the rest of her life it that would protect him.  
"You too", she said, with a voice reserved only for her brother, without any trace of bitterness or anger.  
Pietro smiled. "Always. You know me." He reached out behind and she took his hand, and together they walked towards the avengers._

Steve caught up with the young woman after a minute, but remained one step behind her. He knew how it was to have the whole world crashing down on you – on you only, while everyone else seemed to be pretty well off. And from the look on Tony's face, their conversation had been quite intense. If she needed silence, she would get it. As long as she didn't try to run from him.  
After a few minutes of walking, Wanda gave in. "What do you want?"  
"How do you feel?"  
"How do I _feel_?" She spun around. "How do you expect me to feel? My home is destroyed, my brother is dead, and wherever I go I am followed by Mister Fury's men, reminding me I am a prisoner here as I was in Sokovia."  
"You are not a prisoner. And", he added as Wanda waved the comment aside, "you saved a lot of lives. I know it's not much right now but it's something you can hold on to. You turned around and did your best to make amends."  
Wanda stared at him, suddenly uncertain. She wanted to laugh at him for the fairy tale, but there was something in his face that stopped her. "You really believe that, don't you?"  
Why did everyone ask that? Steve sighed but his voice remained calm. "That you did everything you could? That we would not have been able to win without you? Yes, I do."  
"No, not that." She turned around and started to walk again, nodding to her side. Steve closed the gap. "I mean you really believe that is enough to leave the matter behind?" Her eyes were filled with tears that did not fall. "I made him fight. I made Stark see what he feared most, and when I realized my mistake it was too late. People died."  
"As they do in every war." Steve swallowed. "I've been in this business far longer than you, Wanda. The trick is to think more of those you've saved than of those you didn't."  
"I want no trick."  
"You need it", he said blankly, and once again found Wanda staring at him. "Trust me. You can't move on if you don't. And moving on is the only thing you have to do right now."  
"Do I?" Wanda tensed. "Why? Because it would ruin your reputation as a hero if you cannot save me?"  
Steve smiled sadly, recognizing the pain in her biting tone. "You know why, Wanda."

" _Come get me when the city's empty. Not sooner. Do you understand?"  
Do you understand that the blood of everyone who dies today is on our hands? That it is our fault Ultron is here destroying their city – our city?  
Our fault. Or mine alone.  
Pietro shook his head at the grimness in his sister's voice. He was actually enjoying himself, she saw it in his eyes, despite his obvious exhaustion and the bullet wound in his arm. He liked their new job – destroying robots, saving people. It surely was a nice change, but it could never make up for the bad they'd done, or been willing to let happen… only to destroy one man._

 _Or could it?  
Her brother smiled, both reassuringly and mockingly, and though mind-dealing was her specialty Wanda knew it was an answer to her feelings: it could. If they worked together – maybe with the other avengers, in a team (she wasn't sure yet if she liked that) – they could become better people. People who helped others, people their parents would be proud of.  
"You know", Pietro said, his voice filled with the affection and pride that had carried Wanda through all the years with HYDRA, "I'm twelve minutes older than you."  
Wanda laughed, for his sake as well as for her own. "Go."_

Just like that day, she found herself kneeling on the ground. "I thought he would be safe. I made him promise not to come back to Ultron and me until everything was alright. I…"  
"I know." Steve gently put his arm around her shoulders, half expecting her to jerk away.  
She didn't.  
"When we took the vibranium you said we could still walk away", she murmured. "We should have listened to you."  
"Do you think it would have changed anything?"  
She was about to say yes when she remembered her brother's death. Twelve bullets that were meant for a little boy and Clint Barton - a father. Was there a way they could have stayed away from that war once they'd known about it?

"I have never been alone. My whole life, I have never been alone. Wherever I was, he was there. Whenever I was scared he'd be brave for me. And I was brave for him. I can't put someone else in his place."  
"I know." Steve closed his eyes as Bucky's face appeared in his mind, exactly as it had been seventy-two years ago. No matter the friendships he forged with the others, or with Sam... the brother he'd had could never be replaced.

"But you're not alone. If you stay here, you will not be alone. It doesn't matter where you are, you're an avenger. You avenged yourself when you fought for the good. And when there comes another war – and it will come, believe me – you can help us to save people. And thereby avenge those who died to do the same."

Avenge those who died. Wanda felt a last teardrop rolling out of her eye. Her brother would love the thought of her laughing again, she knew. He would love the thought of her fighting again, if it didn't destroy her. Not that there was much left to destroy.  
Avenge those who died. By living, and by doing the right thing even if her heart longed to let it all go and leave. Avenge Pietro.  
He would love that.

Stephen waited a moment for the message to drop, then he stood up.  
After a moment Wanda followed, and without a word started to walk back. Steve caught up and she reached out her hand and squeezed his for a moment, and together they walked towards the avengers.


End file.
